The opposition is facing a big test. What should they do and how should they behave in the citizens' rebellion that happened last Saturday? It is, after all, a matter of electoral victory.
It was no small victory that Savo Manojlović (Kreni-promeni) wanted to celebrate, since the Government of Serbia made a decision to withdraw the Expropriation Law from the parliamentary procedure, and proposed amendments to the Referendum Law to the National Assembly, which the progressive MPs adopted in half an hour. In almost a decade of progressive government, it has never happened that Aleksandar Vučić ever made a concession in front of the protesters.
On the other hand, declaring any victory means nothing if it is one of those victories that we don't know what to do with. And Vučić's concession is just a simple calculation of how to get Rio Tinto off its pre-election agenda and people off the streets. Because, even without these disputed laws, Rio Tinto entered quite deeply into business in Serbia, and this government illegally enabled them to do so.
Manojlovic also realized this, so he gave up on celebrating the victory at Trg Republike. He said that the Kreni-promeni organization promised publicly that the blockades would end if the demands were adopted because it wanted to keep its word. But also to support every kind of struggle for change, including their "comrades" and organizations that want to continue demonstrations with new demands.
Both opposition leaders and environmental activists are aware that Vučić is pushing them into a void, that he dilutes and weakens them when he says that he has fulfilled environmental demands and that all other demands are political. At the same time, the opposition (green-left bloc of Zelenović, Ćuta and Dobrica Veselinović and political parties from November coalitions SSP-NS-DS) until last Saturday mostly only gave strong support to civil protests, leaving Manojlović to organize them in his own way. When he announced the end of the blockades and the victory, the green-left block took the initiative by extending the demands to the urgent adoption of a law that deletes the mine in Jadro and the removal of REM.
And now, in that crowd of disagreements among environmental activists, the two opposition blocs are actually counting again who is who. It doesn't even matter if Marinika Tepić and others went out on the street today Djilas, Dragana Rakić i Lutovac, Miroslav Aleksić i Jeremic. The latter (People's Party) will. This Saturday, like the previous ones, they invited people to join the protest.
All the same, there are small differences in the question, almost nuances. First of all in tactics. Some claim that the next protests and blockades will blow over because it is impossible to maintain them until spring, and that the solution lies in short and effective diversions that will be organized - such as blockades every other week, and others that lithium is the topic on which Vučić falls and that therefore, the pressure should not be reduced until Rio Tinto is irreversibly expelled from Serbia.
There have already been interpretations that in the next elections the opposition essentially has both the hardest and the easiest task at the same time. The most difficult task is to defeat a man with, without any doubt, a significant majority, and the easiest - that with this state of affairs in Serbia, the opposition does not need to determine Vučić through ideological differences.
In this way, it is enough to go to the market, pick up an apple from the counter and explain to people that the question of whether they will have that apple or not depends on another question - whether Rio Tinto will come to Serbia, as Linglong, Zijin Mining and other companies have already come. which pollute the land, air and water.
The choice, in fact, has never been easier, because it no longer matters what nuances there are in the differences between Jeremic and Đilas, Ćuta and Sava Manojlović. Nobody cares about that anymore. And they should understand that first.
The question here is whether the opposition wants to homogenize the electorate on one topic that everyone understands. And that could be the referendum on Vučić staying in power. It wouldn't be like that if Vučić didn't care about Rio Tinto, if he didn't take on obligations towards that company, if he didn't have the thirty contracts that Serbia signed with Rio Tinto, which were carefully kept from the public until a few days ago.
First, they claimed that we have no obligations towards Rio Tinto apart from the memorandum of understanding, and then we received an open admission from Vučić's deputy Šormaz, who says that it is not true that we have no obligations towards Rio Tinto and that terminating the contract with that company would cost us dearly. There are too many secret contracts of this state to the detriment of the citizens of Serbia: of all the contracts with China, the contract with "Vansi" on the airport concession, the agreement with "Etihad", until the privatization of the "Jaroslav Černi" Institute. Wherever the contracts are not transparent and it is not known who committed to what - there is corruption.
Research shows that 14 percent of SNS sympathizers oppose mining in the Jadra valley. Adding up the percentages, someone calculated that it was around 100.000 Vučić's sure votes. It is a significant benchmark for people on the opposition scene.
Now everyone can criticize Sava Manojlović, but he showed unbearable ease of action. A pure idea formulated into a clear goal, explained to the people in simple vernacular language - the number of people who took to the streets that many opposition leaders can only dream of.
Sava's statement that he keeps his word and that he will not protest further may be his foundation for the future, if he decides to actively engage in politics. A kept word could pay off for him many times over.
Whatever the politicians think about him, everyone would love to see him on their electoral list.
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